


Burning Christmas

by DeckofDragons



Series: 12 Days of Christmas 2019 [10]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Christmas Decorations, Christmas Fluff, Comfort, Fluff, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 16:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21915448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeckofDragons/pseuds/DeckofDragons
Summary: Pyro fears he may have accidentally ruined the team Christmas party.
Relationships: Engineer/Pyro (Team Fortress 2)
Series: 12 Days of Christmas 2019 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1570246
Comments: 4
Kudos: 57





	Burning Christmas

**Author's Note:**

> By sheer accident, this ended one ended up being less happy than the others, whoops. That happens sometimes though I guess.

It had been an accident. Pyro hadn’t _meant_ to do it, he’d just… gotten a bit excited and carried away. And now the team Christmas party was _ruined_ because of him. He hadn’t even _tried_ to put the fire out. He’d run to hide in his room as soon as he’d remembered that the pretty rainbows engulfing the Christmas tree and spreading to the nearby decorations was _actually_ not a good thing no matter how pretty it was or how happy it made him.

That had been _hours_ ago now. The rest of the team _had_ to have returned and seen what he done by now. But no one had come looking for him yet even though they all _had_ to know it was him. Maybe they hadn’t come looking because they were _that_ mad at him; they didn’t want to speak to him or look at him anymore.

He should go out and apologize, beg for forgiveness. But instead, he curled up even tighter in his little corner. He didn’t like when they got mad at him even when it was deserved. He wasn’t ready to get yelled at and scolded and cussed out. So… he’d hide here for a little bit longer. Maybe if he waited long enough some of their anger would die down a bit.

But it wasn’t even half an hour before the knock on his door finally came. It wasn’t an angry knock though. Maybe if Pyro ignored it whoever it was would think he wasn’t in here. That’d only make them madder though, right? … But Pyro wanted to hide for a little be longer.

Unfortunately, the knock soon came again. “Pyro.” It was Engie, either the best or worse person it could’ve been, Pyro wasn’t sure. He didn’t _sound_ mad but he was good at hiding it when he was. “I’m pretty sure you’re in there so could you open up for me? I just want to talk, I ain’t mad, I promise.”

With a whimper, Pyro stood and went over to the door. He had to force himself to open it. “I’m sorry,” he said, unable to look Engie in the face, staring at his feet instead.

Engie stepped in and closed the door. He then put a hand on Pyro’s shoulder and guided him over to sit on the edge of the bed. He sat next to Pyro, close enough that their shoulders brushed. “I ain’t mad,” he said. “The rest of the team is pretty annoyed but they don’t blame you either. I’m sure it was an accident.”

“It’s my fault though.” Pyro _deserved_ their anger. The Christmas party was tomorrow night and the tree and all the decorations in the common room were probably nothing but ash by now. It had taken them hours to put it all up.

“Pyro, dear, I ain’t got a clue what you just said. You got to enunciate, remember?”

Instead, Pyro yanked his mask off. It was Engie, he’d been taking his mask and suit off around Engie for a while now. “It’s my fault,” he said again. “They should be mad, you too.”

“Well, I ain’t. Now you want to tell me exactly what happened?”

“Uh… you know the candles Scout put up around the room? I wanted to light them. And the tree’s so pretty when its lights are on, I wanted to make it prettier, especially since the candles were so pretty too. But… I forgot that the rainbows can do bad things sometimes too even if they _are_ pretty. By the time I remembered it was too late so I ran away.” He could’ve at least _tried_ to salvage something, right? Why hadn’t he?

“I suppose that’s our fault for putting the candles up around the room and leaving them unattended.” Did Engie not realize that Pyro _should’ve_ been smart enough to resist the temptation to light them? It was _so_ hard though. Why’d it have to be like that? It was so unfair. “It’s not the end of the world though, I promise. So, don’t be so harsh on yourself.”

“The party’s ruined though.” Pyro hide his face in his hands, not wanting to look at Engie. “And it’s my fault.”

Engie put a hand on his shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “We can still save it, we got plenty of time. Scout wanted to go out to get new decorations right away but I told him to wait because I want you to come with us. I know how much you love looking at all the Christmas stuff in town and in the store, I wouldn’t want to deprive you of that.”

Pyro dared to peek through his fingers at him. “Really? But… we have battle tomorrow and… it’s already so late.” How were they going to find time to redo everything?

“We can stay up a bit late tonight and fix it. With everyone on the team working together on it, it won’t take too long and we got plenty of coffee in case we need it. Tomorrow’s the last battle before break so no one’s going to be performing well regardless. And all the ashes have already been cleaned up and the scorch marks should be easy to cover up so we don’t got to worry that.”

Pyro probably should’ve helped clean up, the mess was his after all. … Too late now though.

“_Also_,” Engie continued. “We’ve been needing new Christmas lights and tinsel for the last couple years anyway, this is the perfect excuse to finally get some. And I don’t think anyone’s going to object to a bigger tree. We can get a better, fancier star and ornaments too. So really, this ain’t as bad a thing as it might seem.”

“So… we can decorate for the party even prettier than before?” Pyro _liked_ that idea. New decorations were exciting and putting them up, even with a time crunch, would be fun. He’d been wanting to get a better star for the tree for a long time now, the old one, though pretty and sparkly, had been starting to fall apart, losing a lot of its luster. A lot of the ornaments had been cracked too, several of the lights burnt out or broken. So even before the fire they’d needed new decorations. They just… hadn’t been able to justify the expense… until now?

“Yup sure can,” Engie said with a smile. “Most of the stores in town close at midnight though so we should probably head out soon to make sure we can get everything before then.”

“And… I can go with you?”

“Of course. Could just be you and me if you’d prefer that, Scout won’t be happy but he can suck it up. Either way, you get first say in what we pick out. That’s your punishment for burning the tree down, you gotta make all the tough decoration decisions.”

“That’s… not much of a punishment.” That’s something Pyro _wanted_ to do. He loved decorating and picking stuff out.

Engie winked at him. “So, you ready to head out or you need a few more minutes?”

Instead of answering, Pyro hugged him. He squeezed him tight, pressing his face into Engie’s shoulder and breathing in the familiar comforting scent of engine grease that clung to all of Engie’s clothes. “Thanks for not being mad,” he whispered.

Engie patted him on the back and hummed affirmation. Other than that though he was silent, just letting Pyro hold him and holding Pyro back just as tight. When Pyro eventually pulled away because the angle was a bit awkward, he even gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. It made Pyro feel a tad better as well. He wanted a proper kiss but…

He stood up. “We uh… should go to town.” The sooner they bought the stuff, the sooner they could put it up and _hope_ everything turned out better than it had been before the fire. “And… I need to apologize to the rest of the team.” He’d greatly inconvenienced them and if he’d done this tomorrow instead of today, he would’ve _for sure_ ruined the party.

“All right, let’s do that then.” Engie stood too. He took Pyro’s hand after he’d finished putting his mask back on. He gave it a comforting squeeze as they exited the room together.


End file.
